Travel Health Journal

Jet Lag

Our President, Assunta Uffer-Marcolongo, just came back from Beijing where she presented travel health education workshops and from a meeting of the South African Society of Travel Medicine in Johannesburg. Her round-the-world trip got us thinking about jet lag. As travellers, we’ve all experienced it. Some of us have our own tried and true coping mechanisms, while the rest of us can’t shake off jet lag for days or weeks. The key to preventing jet lag is to understand how light and travel direction (east or west) affects your internal clock. There are many over-the-counter drugs and diets purporting to prevent jet lag, and unfortunately there are few controlled scientific studies done on jet lag and travellers. For this ...